Get cracking to Kraków

Close to the border with Slovakia in the far south of Poland lies the historic, cultural city of Kraków. Legend says that the city was created after King Krac defeated a ferocious dragon that was terrorizing the locals. In fact it has been one of the main settlements on the River Vistula since the 7th century.

In 1000 the first bishopric of Kraców was established and eighty-three years later the city became the capital of Piast Kingdom, throughout the 13th century the Tartars invaded Poland several times prompting many of the larger cities to build defensive walls to protect themselves from the enemy hoards.

More stable times came with the reign of King Kazimierz Wielki, a generous patron of art and scholarship. In 1364 he founded the Kraców Academy – later renamed the Jagiellonian University – where in later time Nicolaus Copernicus studied and developed his heretical ideas that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

In 1596, King Sigismund Vasa decided to up sticks and move his royal court to the more centrally located city of Warsaw, Kraców stopped being the capital city but was still given the honour of being the place where the kings of Poland were crowned and buried on Wawel Hill.

The 18th century was the first of a century of great upheaval for the Polish people as Austria, Prussia and Russia all decided to divide the country up into pieces and take it for themselves between 1772 – 1773. The constitution of May 3rd, 1791, restored the hereditary monarchy and reformed the political system, but it didn’t last long and in 1792 Prussia and Russia divided the country. In 1795, Austria decided that it wanted to join the fun and the country was split into three parts with Kraców falling under Austrian government.

In the 19th century Napoleon cast his eye across Europe and decided that he wanted a piece of Poland too, and between 1807 and 1815 he created the semi-independent Duchy of Warsaw which included Kraców. After ‘Boney’s’ defeat the Congress of Vienna re-partitioned the country and gave a large portion to Russia, for a brief time between 1815-1846 The Republic of Kraców existed, but the city was eventually absorbed into the Austrian controlled territory.

The 20th century witnessed Poland’s darkest days. All started out well as the partition collapsed following World War I allowing for Polish independence to be declared on November 11th 1918, and for the next 20 years Kraców developed and started to regain its Polish identity.

September 1st 1939 signalled the end of ‘old’ Poland as Hitler’s Nazis invaded and very quickly took over Western Poland, followed two weeks later by the Russian invasion from the east. By the 6th September the Nazis had swept into Kraców and the systematic suppression of the Poles and removal of the Jews began. On 6th November the Jagiellonian University professors were arrested and transported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In 1941, the Jewish ghetto in Podgórze was created across the river from the old city and the Jews living in the district of Kazimierz were forcefully evicted into it.

After the war, still reeling from the horrors inflicted on the city, the Soviets took control, all property and businesses were nationalised, organised religion came under attack and opposition leaders were imprisoned. Stalin discovered that putting Poland under the Soviet thumb was no easy task, and at one point described the process as being similar to “putting a saddle on a cow”.

In 1989 following intense pressure from the Polish people and the Solidarność (Solidarity) party, the communist regime crumbled and Poland became the first country to leave the Soviet bloc. Finally, in 2004, it was accepted into the European Union.

Visitors to the city will be pleased to realise that it escaped World War II relatively unscathed, compared to many other cities that were bombed, apart from the destruction of some memorials and statues by the Nazis, the buildings remained intact. The city can be divided into two distinct parts, the Old Town, dominated by the huge Market Square, and containing the former Jewish Quarter of Kazimierz and the former ghetto of Podgórze, and the ‘modern’ Soviet area of Nowa Huta, designed to be the total opposite of the Old Town.
The Rynek Glówny, or Market Square, is the largest medieval town square in Poland and reputedly in Europe with the 14th century Cloth Hall in the centre (currently covered in scaffolding undergoing renovation). Dominating the eastern corner is St. Mary’s Church, impressive from the outside and spectacular inside, a true example of Gothic architecture gone mad with all the pomp, gilding and decoration that the Catholic Church is famous for.

As with other European town-squares, the Market Square is surrounded by cafés, restaurants and shops, for the traveller with a few more Zloty to spend (current exchange rate is £1 = approx. 4 zl). If you explore down the many side streets leading away from the square you will easily find cheaper alternatives. The culinary delights of Poland, Italy, France, Georgia and Latvia can be found rubbing shoulders with the usual kebab shops and McDonald's. Beer is cheap but wine is expensive here, for the vegetarian traveller there are a number of restaurants catering for this and most restaurants have a vegetarian option. If you’re not a fan of pork you may have more of a problem: it’s a large part of many restaurant menus.

There is a great variety of shops in the Old City selling anything from kitsch religious icons to expensive jewellery made from amber excavated from The Baltic, but if you’re looking for a British-style department store you’ll be in for a disappointment.

Encircling the whole ‘city centre’ is the Planty. This was once a series of medieval fortifications surrounded by a moat. After Poland’s third partition the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef I ordered the fortifications to be pulled down and the moat filled in. It is now a wide, tree-lined avenue where Kracówians walk their dogs or relax in the summer sun.

To the south of the city is the huge Wawel Hill complex, behind the fortified walls are the Wawel Cathedral, where the kings of Poland were crowned, and the Royal Castle where thirty-five Polish rulers have lived. Deep inside the hill the curious tourist can find the Dragon’s Den, a spectacular limestone formation formed about 25 million years ago and the home of the Wawel Dragon of legend.

Leaving the confines of the Old City and moving out towards the south-east you enter the Kazimierz district, originally a totally separate town from Kraców, during the various partitions of the country this are became predominantly Polish, as opposed to the mainly German inhabitants of Kraców, and so became the Jewish Quarter with numerous synagogues. In 1796 it was incorporated into Kraców itself. By 1938 the Jewish population stood at approximately 65,000, by the end of WW II the figure was 6,000 and further decline happened during the Soviet administration of the city. Happily, in the past ten years the Jewish Quarter has seen a slow revival.

Kraców is an old city with a young  and vibrant feel to it, and the large universities attract many young people from all over Europe further adding to the mixture of nationalities you hear as you walk around the streets. A word of warning if you intend to visit in the winter: the temperature usually drops below freezing and there is snow, often lots of it. If you’re a fan of the heat then wait until July and August.

Across the river from the Jewish Quarter you can find Oskar Schindler’s metalware factory, thousands of Kraców’s Jews were saved from the concentration camps by this entrepreneur who, through bribes and lavish gifts, persuaded the Germans to allow him to employ many Jews to work for him.

A trip to Kraców can not be complete without a visit to the Concentration Camp at Oświęcim – renamed Auschwitz by the Nazis, – and the Extermination Camp at Birkenau 80km outside the city. A harrowing and profoundly thought-provoking trip to make. If you do not wish to have a guided tour the admission is free, however it is recommended that you join one of the numerous guided tours that organise pick-ups from Kraców to ensure that you do not miss out on this most educational and eye-opening of visits.